Secrets of the Apple (49 page)

I also need to thank all those teachers who pushed and prodded me, particularly Colleen Barton, Scott Samuelson, and the late Leslie Norris, though the real list is far longer. It probably looked like I wasn’t listening, but I was.

Last of all I need to thank my dad, Ron Messer, for being my best reader, and helping me make my manuscript so much better than I could have made it on my own. However, in reality, his writing lessons started when I was a little girl asking him where words came from. He grinned great big and the next day brought home a tall stack of library books about the origins of the English language. He read to me too, fearlessly introducing Beowulf and Grendel to a child in the single digits, initiating a love affair with words I have yet to recover from. If everyone could have a dad like mine, the world would have very few troubles.

Born in Rexburg, Idaho, Paula Hiatt has also lived in various parts of the United States, as well as Brazil and China. She holds a master’s degree in English, and when she is not writing, she is reading, traveling, or attending board game conventions with her husband and three children.
Secrets of the Apple
is her first novel.

Visit her at
www.paulahiatt.net.